Tax and regulation impediments to innovation
Australian regulatory and tax issues remain major impediments to product innovation in the financial services industry, according to research findings to be discussed at this week's Financial Services Council conference which starts in Cairns today.
The conference delegates will draw on the findings of the FSC/DST CEO survey to discuss the reality that around 42 per cent of the Australian financial chief executives surveyed had been in a position where they tried to develop a new process or product but had been prevented from doing so due to a Government-related barrier.
Further, the research revealed that those that faced regulatory barriers to innovation had identified Australian tax issues as the main reason they were unable to proceed.
It noted that the respondents generally believed that companies based overseas were unlikely to have encountered similar barriers.
The survey findings noted that "regulation is not generally seen as an incubator of innovative ideas".
The research went on to suggest that the implementation of the MySuper regime had served to stifle product innovation as companies moved to a one size fits all approach and that SuperStream, while necessitating significant expenditure, had led to the digitisation of existing processes rather than the development of new approaches.
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